Krasner was meeting with Hickey because she will be running for Reno’s Assembly District 26 seat in 2014, now held by Assemblyman Randy Kirner, R-Reno.

Sitting in on the meeting doesn’t mean that Gibbons will join Krasner’s campaign, she said. Gibbons was just there to give her encouragement and support as a friend, Krasner said

Krasner, a mother of two, said she has known Gibbons since she began working on a state bill to better protect children from pedophiles when Gibbons was a congressman.

She was in a Gibbons’ campaign commercial.

Krasner teaches at the Reno campus of the University of Phoenix and Gibbons has spoken to her political science class, she said.

“We stayed in contact over the years,” Krasner said. “I've consulted with him over the years as a friend and that is why he was there. That’s all.”

Hickey said he wasn't expecting to see Gibbons.

“I was surprised by that,” Hickey said of Gibbons’ presence. “She did not tell me the former governor was going to be joining us.”

Hickey said he it seemed like Gibbons supported Krasner's candidacy.

“I certainly got that impression,” Hickey said. “Why he was there? I think you would have to ask her because she invited him.”

If you want to run to the right in a GOP primary, Jim Gibbons is your man. But the one-and-done governor who divorced his wife during his gubernatorial term could be a liability as a supporter in a general election.

About this blog

Ray Hagar is the political reporter for the Reno Gazette-Journal and a fifth-generation Nevadan. Hagar is also a co-host for the Nevada Newsmakers statewide television program. He is the co-author of "Johnson-Jeffries: Dateline Reno," a book about the 1910 "Fight of the Century" in Reno that pitted black world champion Jack Johnson against the "Great White Hope," Jim Jeffries